Page 54 of A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances
‘Okay,’ she said. She looked down at the cake and then across the room to where Matt and Aaron were cheering on Arlo as he attempted a few tentative steps. ‘Just be careful.’
‘I’m always careful!’ I protested.
‘I know you are,’ she said, with a bit too much pathos.
I crossed the room to the trestle table where Alex was still manning the Cheezels bowl.
‘These are exactly as good as I remember them being, which is a rare thing,’ he said.
‘Some palates mature with age, some don’t,’ I said archly.
‘I can’t believe Lily is old enough to have a kid. That she’s a parent,’ Alex said, watching Arlo proudly shuffle behind the walker he’d just received from Lily’s parents.
‘That’s a refreshing take,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’ He turned to face me.
‘Well... I feel like people are more surprised that I’m a woman in my thirties without kids, or at least a baby belly.’
‘Do you want kids?’ Alex asked. He seemed surprised by the notion, as if one of the experiments he was conducting had just reacted in a way he hadn’t predicted.
‘Yes,’ I said, as usual struggling to be anything but honest under his inquiring gaze. Matt and I hadn’t worked out an exact timeline – neither of us wanted to upset the gods of fertility. But I’d upped my health insurance to include maternity. And when he’d got his job, Matt had been thrilled by their generous paternity-leave policy. ‘Do you want kids?’
‘No,’ he said, without hesitation. ‘Though I guess I’ve only thought about it in the realm of the hypothetical.’
I stared at him for a second. If ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ was the defining question of our twenties, this question and its variations – ‘How many?’ ‘When?’ – was the question of our thirties. I’d only known Alex for two months in my early twenties. Of course there were a million things I didn’t, couldn’t, know about him.
The twenty-page questionnaire that Belinda had inflicted upon us had many categories: ‘Approaches to money’, ‘Resolving conflicts’, ‘Work–life balance’, ‘Your future family’. Could Alex and I have agreed on any of those sections?
‘Is it a coincidence that we’re working together?’ I finally asked Alex the question I’d come over to discuss, the one I’d convinced myself was my mind spiralling.
My phone started vibrating before he could reply. I looked down at the screen in case it was Miranda. My eyebrows involuntarily shot up with surprise. It was Dad.
‘Sorry, I have to take this,’ I said quickly. The house was heaving with people, so I ducked into the small nook Lily used for work to hear him.
‘Dad! Hi!’ I said.
‘Darling. I heard you had a bit of a rough week,’ he said in his booming voice.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I said. ‘Sorry they disturbed you at work. I hadn’t updated my emergency contact.’
‘I rang my colleagues at Frankston Hospital to make sure you were getting the royal treatment as soon as your boss called,’ he said. I felt a sting of remorse. I’d been quick to judge Dad for not checking on me but he’d been one step ahead. No wonder my very junior doctor had been quickly replaced with someone who was in charge, who’d had the authority to let me go home.
‘Thanks, Dad!’ I felt my eyes well up again – was I becoming a crier? Dadhadshown up for me.
‘I’ve just pulled into the hospital car park so—’ The call ended abruptly. My calls with Dad had been cut off mid-conversation for as long as I could remember. He would have reached his designated parking spot, deep in the bowels of the hospital car park with no reception.
I stood in the nook for a moment. Lily’s office was peak Lily – an old-fashioned roller top school desk, which she’d painted emerald, showcased a hot-pink U-shaped resin vase, holding two dahlias. The desk had a stack of what looked like bills on it. The letter at the top of the pile hadFinal Noticeprinted on it in an aggressive red that matched neither the desk nor the vase.
Was everything okay? I took a step towards the pile then paused. Lately, I’d been rushing to the wrong conclusions. I had to stop. It was none of my business. If Lily had forgotten to pay a parking fine or whatever, it was none of my business. If Alex wanted to spend his Saturday afternoon at a kid’s birthday party, well, that was lovely. If Dad wanted to work every weekend, wouldn’t his patients feel cared for. I needed to stop imagining every worst-case scenario. Like Matt said, I wasn’t cursed. I was lucky.
The party, because it was a party hosted by Lily Li, was a triumph. Even Mia, who’d returned after inhaling a handful of Paracetamol and a strong coffee, looked like she was enjoying herself despite the many babies in situ.
We all gathered around a table as Aaron lit the candles on the cake, which fitted Lily’s party aesthetic perfectly. Matt kneeled in front of them taking photos. I scanned the room. Alex was at the back of the crowd, standing by himself.
I shot him a friendly smile – the same kind I’d give Mia or her parents. But he didn’t see me. And then I noticed his expression. He was staring at Arlo, flanked by both his parents, with the saddest expression I’d ever seen. I’d seen glimmers of this look before, when all the bravado, all the self-assuredness, had melted away, exposing a man who looked so vulnerable, so sad.
His mouth moved along with the final line of the birthday song, but I could see that he wasn’t really in the room. As Aaron leaned forwards to blow out the candles and Lily kissed Arlo on the cheek, her eyes bright and face burning with love for her son, I could almost see the pull in his heart.
